Edinburgh, Glasgow & Southern Scotland

The Romans pushed north of Hadrian's Wall more than once and in the 140s built the Antonine Wall, a turf rampart between the Forth and the Clyde now part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. After Rome the south was divided among British kingdoms such as Strathclyde, whose stronghold was Dumbarton Rock, the Angles of Northumbria in the Lothians and Borders, and the Gaelic Scots, who gradually absorbed them all into the kingdom of Alba.

Twelfth-century King David I and his nobles founded burghs and the great Border abbeys of Melrose, Jedburgh, Kelso and Dryburgh. The Wars of Independence were fought largely here: William Wallace won at Stirling Bridge in 1297, and Robert the Bruce, whose family came from Ayrshire and Annandale, defeated Edward II at Bannockburn in 1314. Edinburgh became the Stuart capital, and centuries of English raids left the abbeys in ruins by the 1540s.

After the 1707 union, Edinburgh's New Town and the Scottish Enlightenment of David Hume and Adam Smith, born in Kirkcaldy, made the capital an intellectual centre, while Robert Burns wrote in Ayrshire. Glasgow grew on tobacco and then on the Clyde's shipyards and heavy engineering to become the "Second City of the Empire"; Lanarkshire's coal and iron and the model mill village of New Lanark were part of the same boom. The 20th century brought Red Clydeside radicalism, the decline of shipbuilding, the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, and, in 1999, a Scottish Parliament meeting again in Edinburgh, later at Holyrood.

This is the most urban part of Scotland, and its two big cities define themselves against each other: Edinburgh as the stately, professional capital, Glasgow as the warmer, rougher, funnier city of music and art. Scots, the Germanic language of Burns, is still heard across the Lowlands in words like "wee", "ken" and "bairn", and Glaswegian speech has its own "patter". Gaelic is far less common here than in the Highlands.

Football carries old divisions: Glasgow's Celtic and Rangers, the Old Firm, draw on Catholic and Protestant loyalties, a rivalry that still has a sectarian edge. Rugby matters more in the Borders, where seven-a-side rugby was invented at Melrose in 1883, and golf is played everywhere, most famously at St Andrews.

The calendar is crowded. Edinburgh's International Festival and Fringe, both dating from 1947, fill August; Hogmanay and Burns Night on 25 January are celebrated with ceilidh dancing and verse. Each summer the Border towns stage Common Ridings, when riders on horseback follow the old town boundaries. The Borders are also known for cashmere and tweed, and Glasgow for the art nouveau designs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Well over half of Scotland's people live in this region. Glasgow has about 630,000 people and a wider conurbation of well over a million, Edinburgh about 520,000; other large towns include Paisley, East Kilbride, Livingston, Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy and Ayr. The Borders and Dumfries and Galloway, by contrast, are rural, with small market towns and sheep farms.

Edinburgh's economy rests on government, finance, universities and tourism; Glasgow's on services, retail, education, events and the remaining naval shipyards on the Clyde. Grangemouth's petrochemicals, Fife's former coalfield and the Lanarkshire towns have faced long industrial decline. Current issues include Edinburgh's housing pressure and short-term lets, drug deaths, which are among the highest in Europe, and the long debate about independence.

Commuters stream along the M8 and the trains between the two cities. Evenings mean pubs and gigs in Glasgow, and in Edinburgh a quieter rhythm that switches to round-the-clock crowds each August.

The Lowlands eat the national staples — haggis with neeps and tatties, Scotch pies, stovies of potatoes and meat — alongside a strong regional larder. Ayrshire middle bacon is a Scottish breakfast staple, and Ayrshire's early potatoes are prized; Dunlop, a mild cheese, is named after an Ayrshire village. Galloway beef comes from the black, hardy cattle of the south-west, and the East Neuk of Fife is known for crab, lobster and fish and chips at Anstruther.

The Borders bake the Selkirk bannock, a rich fruit bread, and Dumfries and Galloway the Ecclefechan tart of dried fruit. Tunnock's teacakes and caramel wafers are made at Uddingston in South Lanarkshire, and Irn-Bru, the bright orange soft drink, at Cumbernauld. Glasgow claims chicken tikka masala and has a long tradition of Italian cafés and fish-and-chip shops.

Lowland whisky, lighter than Highland styles, comes from distilleries such as Glenkinchie in East Lothian and Auchentoshan near Glasgow, and Arran has its own distillery at Lochranza, along with its own cheeses. Edinburgh and Glasgow have many craft breweries.

Edinburgh packs its sights into the Old and New Towns: the castle, the Royal Mile down to the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the Scottish Parliament, the National Museum of Scotland, and the climb up Arthur's Seat; Leith has the Royal Yacht Britannia. Nearby are Rosslyn Chapel, Linlithgow Palace, the Forth Bridge, and the gannet colony on the Bass Rock off North Berwick. Glasgow has Kelvingrove, the Riverside Museum, the Burrell Collection, the medieval cathedral and the Necropolis, plus Mackintosh buildings across the city.

Stirling's castle and the Wallace Monument overlook the Bannockburn battlefield, and to the west lie Loch Lomond and the Trossachs. Falkirk has the Falkirk Wheel boat lift and the Kelpies, and South Lanarkshire has New Lanark. In Fife, St Andrews offers the Old Course, cathedral ruins and Scotland's oldest university, with fishing villages along the East Neuk.

The Borders abbeys of Melrose, Jedburgh, Kelso and Dryburgh lie close to Walter Scott's house at Abbotsford. Dumfries and Galloway has Caerlaverock Castle, Galloway Forest Park, Kirkcudbright and the book town of Wigtown. In Ayrshire are Burns' birthplace at Alloway, Culzean Castle and the links courses at Troon and Turnberry; offshore, Arran has Brodick Castle and Goatfell.